Tell us how you cut the cord! Do you regret it?
Let me say how we did it.
We had Comcast Cable… paid about $50 a month in Equipment fees… that was the real motivation… no monthly equipment fees.
Already had Roku for streaming Prime etc.
Anyway, after reading reviews, signed up for the Youtube TV, 2 week free trial. Looked Promising, we tried to not use cable during the trial time… still not sure… so we paid for a month running parallel with cable. Liked it. 6 week trial convinced us. Stopped Cable at end of 6 weeks.
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Let me add, we had our home phone with cable also… prices going up w/o the triple play, I had planned ahead and the phone had already been transferred to OOMA. OOma is not perfect but with 2 Cell phones, we are covered… just did not want to lose the number we have had for over 40 years.
We also switched internet to AT&T… price same but AT&T is unlimited… the price is the price. If you got the AT&T 1Gig service about $75/month you got HBOmax included. Not sure we need 1Gig or HBOmax.
May drop back to 400 service and drop the HBOmax.
With Comcast I had 200 service and not seeing much difference… but satisfied. We can run several TVs at once w/o problems.
I have not used Ooma but have heard differing opinions about their service.
Personally I moved my home phone to Voip.Ms and then have multiple choices. I can load an app on my cellphone to use my data or wifi plan to send and receive calls using that number. If I wanted, I could just forward those calls to another number or voicemail. I also have a physical Voip phone at home with multiple lines. The phone cost about $60 and Voip service is really cheap. Just to keep a telephone number cots about 85 cents a month. Calls are really cheap too.
If Ooma goes out of business or the service no longer suits you, you end up with hardware you cannot use with another service provider. That is why I chose hardware that can be used by perhaps hundreds of providers. I also use the same phone to call out and receive calls from the free service GoogleVoice.
Although I use Voip.Ms and GoogleVoice as my main providers, I also have an account at CallCentric and could use one of a hundred others, many at the same time.
Although Ooma is fairly simple to set up, I needed much more ability to block and control calls. Ooma also would charge me as a premium customer because they don’t offer telephone numbers in my state. otherwise I would have at least tried them.
As always, everyones mileage may differ.
As for television, one way is to use an antenna. We here on the Big Island of Hawaii have no local television. However, many people on the North West side can use an antenna to capture the TV repeaters on Maui (100+ miles away). Granted, there are few obstructions along that path however they get perfect reception. Go here and see if your location gets over the air channels. DTV Reception Maps | Federal Communications Commission
Then look into streaming channels. There are sites which can tell you what programs are available, where and if there is a cost. JustWatch Apps for mobile and Smart TVs
Check out services such as Roku (You can see what they offer using a browser and heading to https://roku.com). They have many channels and lots of programs. If you like Roku then you can either use a Roku TV (a TV with the app already installed) or you can buy a Roku device to attach to the TV via a HDMI cable. Other services Chrome and Apple might work for you.
Paid services like Netflix, Hulu and so on may fill in the gaps, but continue looking at free alternatives.
On my Roku TV (and available often through browsers or other services) are channels such as Crackle, Tubi, Plex, Popcornflix, The CW and the list goes on; hundreds to thousands of channels, many free and many look like a cable lineup channel. Yes for free there are often commercials but usually they are not too often or irritating.
There are ways to watch news programs from various cities and ways to watch previous broadcasts which have already aired.
I only pay for 2 channels and use a couple of paid channels my family shares with me.
Hi Lava,
It seems Repeaters and Auxiliary Transmitters are a thing of the past.
Rather than the TV station spending Money to provide Better Coverage, they leave it up to the Cable and Streamers to increase their Coverage and thereby increase their Ad rates.
And the FCC allows the Broadcast Stations to Charge the Cable/Streaming Providers to extend that Coverage which increases your cable/streaming rates.
Does that make sense to anyone.
You may be right, but we certainly are an exception, at least for now.
HPR (Hawaii Public Radio) has multiple translators to cover the state. Making Waves and the TV station transmitters (some moved). Note the rubber hose on the one photo, probably to help during earthquakes. ur island is the size of Connecticut but divided in half with giant volcanoes which block radio, TV and yeas even hurricanes.
Many of the radio stations here on my island have two transmitters, one on the east side and one on the west. The 14,000 volcanoes in the middle block FM and AM signals.
During a recent 6.8 quake followed by a 5.2 shortly thereafter, almost all TV and radio being received by us on the Big Island went down. We also lost Internet. We had to barely hear AM radio from 170 miles away. AM, FM and TV cannot penetrate many of the locations out here. We don’t even have a NOAA Weather Radio station available in case of issues because of the terrain. This is on an island which has tsunamis, heavy rainfall and massive earthquakes over 6.0 and we cannot depend upon emergency communications like them. (Washington Post) A major cold-season Kona storm system is bringing significant precipitation totals to Hawaii, including up to 25 inches of rain, a foot of mountain snow and hurricane-force winds on the summits of the Big Island. A rare blizzard warning was issued for Mauna Kea, whose nearly 14,000-foot summit was a winter wonderland over the weekend.
Ham radio can help but barely.
While many people rely upon cable, we are stuck if the cable goes down. We have had major outages of cable AND cellphones at the same time and assume that the interconnection is by cable and also cable to the other islands.
So you may be right, I disagree when it comes to our state at least.
my husband and I cut the cord many years ago. i have a amazon accout (and trust me what i pay for that i get back in all my free shipping. no matter what I order its always delivered free plus free return. you also get a lot of free movies and shows. i also pay for netflix and they offer a lot of movies and tv shows. i love that both amazon and netflix have tv shows with no commericals. I pay 12.99 a month for netflix and 92.00 dollars a year for amazon (well worth that)… i also pay 7.99 for you tube so i can watch any and all the shows they have on there with no commericals. well worth it to me. I hate commericals. as Howard suggest you can try a number of channel free for a week or two and then cancel or continue with a small monthly charge and cancel whenever you feel like it. the only thing i pay other then that if for my internet. of course you need a smart TV. i have not tried the other two ways that Howard suggest to stream shows because i am quite happy with what I have right now and the bottom line is I pay a lot less them people who keep paying the cable company each month. i know some people are paying almost 200.00 a month. now if I did not order from amazon as much as i do then the 99.00 wwhould be a lot but with all the things I order and the fress shipping plus the movies and tv shows its a no brainer for me
@Lavarock you are in the .01% of telco users. The definition of a power user. I remember that from the first time these boards existed. Good to see that you are still around and doing well.
I used to have Ooma, but as we stopped using our home phone anymore I just ported it to Google Voice to keep the number.
The Obihai adapters allow you to plug a phone into them (they plug into the internet). They also allow GoogleVoice, so you could have a physical phone at home with free Googlevoice,
Here are two cases of local people here cutting the cord from traditional phone service.
A limo company has multiple business-type phones here on island. They have an app to send messages to drivers on who/where to go for pickup. When someone calls in the telephone number, the call goes to all phones (although unless someone is dispatching calls the phone phones are on DO NOT DISTURB). At and of one shift the person stopping just presses DND and their relief un-silences their phone. One of the dispatchers is in Washington state and another is in Serbia tending to his sick Mother. All done with VOIP.
Secondly, there is a woman who owns 2 local stores here. She is currently paying over $250 for Internet and phone at one location and Phone at the other. They use a fax and credit card scanner at one location and credit card machine at the other. Her new credit card machine now can use the Internet and she got rid of the fax. So my suggestion is for her to just have Internet at both locations. The phone number will be ported to a VOIP supplier and the second telephone number will be merged to the primary number, leaving 1 number to call. There will be a greeting that asks callers to choose which store and the call will go to an adapter at the specifics store with a cordless phone attached. She will save lots of money each month and gets a lot of extras like voicemail and ability to decide which countries she wants to call or block. She has occasional calls to Bali.
By the way, the owner has a house up the mountain and can only use a hotspot to get on the Internet. Because they have line-of-sight to the island of Maui 75 miles away where the closest TV station towers are, I set up a TV antenna for them and they get something like 10 over-the-air channels for free.
For my home since I can’t get signals from Maui, I have Internet and we stream a number of services and take advantage of the many free services like Pluto-TV. Our only problem is that Internet and power can go out at any time as there is one main road around the outer part of the island and accidents, storms and the occasional lava flow can take out services 
I had Comcast, and actually, I would have kept it but when my plan “expired”, they didn’t have anything that was comparable to what I had.
So I have Comcast internet only and they have the Flex box which comes free. The flex box has various apps such as Hulu, HBO, Paramount+, Amazon prime, etc. (you must have subscriptions for those you want). Flex also streams some network programs.
I also attached a small antenna for local TV stations – I get every one except for ABC, which is on a different part of the spectrum in my area, but that’s OK.
I’ve been happy with this arrangement so far.
Here in FL, Spectrum is the sole cable provider. My bill was inching up steadily to a point where I felt the value proposition was poor. I was fully prepared to cut the cord and called with that in mind. As it turned out Spectrum has a deal that worked for me – I could select any 15 channels I wanted and stream them thus not paying for any boxes. I can still record, etc. My bill was cut more than half. Now, I’m satisfied with the value again. Lesson: calling to cancel may yield a value proposition you can live with.
Hey Gene, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you’re referring to Spectrum Choice, right? From what I’ve read online, it sounds like it’s $30/month for 15 live channels. Is that price accurate, or is the price you’re paying different? Personally, I’d love to see them offer tiers of choices - maybe pick 5 channels for $10 to start.
Spectrum Choice may work for you if you get all the channels that you want.
Did not work for me because I am a True Crime junkie and wanted all those channels.
I got them and I am now paying $ 80.00 per month after spending about $ 200.00 for two Roku sticks. My $ 80.00 per includes 1 gig internet from Google Fiber and one paid channel.
Most of what I watch is free.
I want to cut the cord but need my local channels for news etc. I bought some antenna’s but my Smart TV’s don’t have “air” as an option. Is there any way to keep my local channels before I cut the cord?
Your tv should definitely work with an antenna. Is the tv perhaps a Samsung? There are numerous discussions with fixes online for this issue on Samsungs. The fixes seem to be doing several steps in a specific order.
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Thanks, 2 are Samsung 2 Vizio’s
If you have a house wiifi or LAN you can hook up one antenna to a gadget from SiliconDust and get local channels on anything hooked up your router network… Most smart TVs will run the app. It’s called HDHomeRun:
https://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/
On Roku there is an app called VeryLocal that carries some of the local channels for free.
Thanks, but I don’t have a Roku. I already bought antenna’s I can’t use. I guess I’m stuck with cable. These smart TVs are just causing me frustration, the remotes are a joke. I’m not tech savvy. 
On my tvs, you can buy a cheap adapter and plug the antenna into one of the hdmi slots. Your tv remote should have a button for source. If cable is in the hdmi slot #1 then you pick it for cable. If you plug your antenna into hdmi #2, then pick that with the source button for antenna tv. Probably simpler than I made it sound. Me and technology are not friends either.